


stitch it up, darling girl

by StrawberryRain



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, but angst!, hime works through a tangled mess of her feelings, make no mistake uryuu comes off shining, rain rain love again, this is post war, trigger warning: PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryRain/pseuds/StrawberryRain
Summary: Ishihime week 2020. Orihime working through a mess of tangled feelings heavily ft. the rain
Relationships: Inoue Orihime/Ishida Uryuu, one sided Inoue Orihime/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: IshiHime Week 2020





	stitch it up, darling girl

**Author's Note:**

> Ishihime week 2020  
> Prompt: rain
> 
> ~850 words

When it rains in Karakura, it pours. 

On such days, Orihime sits by the window, basking in the soft white noise of the falling droplets. Her fingers: deft, urgent, clicking in time with the rain, sew intricate wishes into thread and cloth. She knows there is craft, and there is prayer.

She knows too, that sometimes, there is no difference. 

_Weaving Princess_. 

Orihime isn't quite sure what to make of her name. 

She has taught herself, when she feels untethered, to turn to curiosity. Where does the rain come from, and could she employ the airiness of her being to forge connection? Could she, watery-thin and transparent, build herself up? 

Her mind wanders back to her name again: why her parents named her so. Perhaps they thought it was pretty, or perhaps they just liked it. 

Like her namesake, Orihime feels doomed to a loveless life. 

In the corner of her eye, Ishida weaves his own tale. She watches him sometimes: the curve of his neck so proud and delicate; the way he bites his lip sometimes when he's concentrating. He would tell her, she knows, if he could hear her thoughts now, that she's catastrophizing, that there's no reason why she can't find happiness now. That her past can't dictate her present. 

She knows because he's said it before. 

She'd asked him where she should go, to find it. Who she should look for. There was salt on her lips, but she hadn’t meant to rub it in. She hadn't meant to mock. But he'd looked at her silently, so silent, and then he’d told her, softly, that she had metal in her, _mettle_ in her. That she was a kaleidoscope of stardust and steadfastness.  The delicacy in his gaze had awed her. 

She wishes she could understand. 

_Star light, star bright_ , she would sing as a child, _first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might..._

She's always wishing. 

There was a day, in the summer, when she'd plucked up all her courage, tucked her hair behind her ears, picked up all the longing in her heart. Then she'd laid all of her pieces before Ichigo. 

_If I keep you away from the precipice_ , she'd asked, _if I give more ground than you ever wanted, would you claim me? Let me make space for you. I will be who you want._

He'd looked at her deeply, softly, so softly she knew her heart was going to break.  


_You'd be a ghost_ , he'd said. 

She’d promised herself she wouldn't cry. 

Sometimes she breaks her own promises. Sometimes she lies, too, smiling with her teeth and calling the half-bidden tears in her eyes the stars. Just a little trick of the light. She knows they see through it. Especially Ishida. They are linked by grief, and the knowing of it. 

What the pattern she's sewing was supposed to be, she can't quite recall, but it's starting to look like a magpie. Pesky little robbers. Orihime wishes she could steal all the things she's ever wanted, sometimes. Her desires make her black and blue. They make her iridescent. 

If she could do magic... Not this kind of magic, the one she already knows how to use, the one she uses to _reject_ and _reject_ and _reject_ all the unsavoury things she doesn't want—

No. She wants to possess the magic that Rukia has: her, with her hard edges and sharp tongue and, despite them, or because of them, the softest heart of all. Unlike Orihime, she lights up Ichigo's darkness, aglow like the moon; hand-waves the tides of his despair away. And who but the moon could sunshine boy fall for? 

As to herself, she is sure she could be a flower in the concrete. Soak up the sunlight, let it in through the cracks in the pavement. Have her thirst quenched by the rain. Be a thing of beauty, beauty that grows and blooms even in adversity. Talk to the bees and learn of curious things. 

Then she could try to be happy. 

Having noticed, a-sudden, that she's pricked herself, she pulls away from her reverie and brings her bleeding finger up to her mouth. _Tastes like war_ , she realises. She remembers her resolve breaking, and her body breaking down; the weight of the world on the shoulders of her friends and herself. The agony of being left behind. The gnawing chasm of separation. Ishida picking the other side.

_Not again_ , she thinks. _Not again_. She is so very tired. 

As the sun starts to set, Orihime feels her heart sink and settle somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She lays down her work; closes her eyes, unclenches her jaw, unclasps her fingers. _Breathe_ , she tells herself, _breathe, breathe. Where is your heart?_

_Where is your heart?_

A voice — urgent, breathless, _gentle_ — whispers her name. _It's a whisper like a prayer,_ she thinks, sweet and sacred. 

_Orihime. Weaving Princess_. 

An unravelling. A reckoning. 

She is here. She is alive. She is safe. 

She can take his hand.

Soft as the rain, Ishida walks her home. 


End file.
